David Allen is the high priest of personal productivity. His first book, Getting Things Done , sold more than 1.5 million copies, and now he and his GTD consultants travel the world helping people to, well, get things done. Not bad for a guy who had held 35 jobs by the time he was 35. The California-based consultant, 63, who will be speaking in Montreal tomorrow, spoke to The Globe and Mail about being lazy and the spiritual side of the cult of GTD.
You've built a multimillion-dollar company based upon a system to help people manage their work and life. Yet you say you're the ‘laziest guy you ever met.' I wake up thinking, ‘How much easier can I do whatever it is I'm doing?' It's a little hyperbolic, but it's also a way to make a point, which is all about being smart about how to be lazy. I have a black belt in karate, and a lot of people say that's not very lazy. But once you've got a black belt, you can walk across the room with less effort than anybody else.
When you encounter somebody who's never heard of personal productivity, never heard of Getting Things Done. … Are there people out there like that? [laughing] Yeah, I guess they're still there. The elevator pitch is this: I didn't discover or make up techniques or behaviours that you don't already do. This isn't like learning a foreign language. It's really just understanding the principles that underlie the experience when you do stuff that really works and you're “on” and time disappears. … Everybody has written stuff down on a list and felt better; I'm just the guy who figured out why it works.
Where does multitasking fit in? You can't multitask with a concentrated focus. You can't think about two things at once. You can switch fast … but you can only consciously place your attention on one thing at a time.
So is multitasking a myth? The problem is people don't know how to place-hold what they're thinking about, and it follows them along. So a part of their psyche is attempting to simultaneously manage several things at once, and that's creating ulcers. Ask a black belt whether they are fighting four people at once when they get jumped. They're not. They're fighting one person at a time – it's just a really fast switch. I was much better at fighting four people at once than one because it required me to be totally present.
Did you get to the breaking-bricks point with karate? Yeah.
What was your record? I usually broke cinder-block bricks. Maybe two or three.
Is there a spiritual side to GTD? If you mean the small “s,” then yes. I've always been fascinated by the things you can't see, but in that sense gravity is spiritual, too, because you can't see it. To me, the unseen is the most fascinating thing. If you could get a hold of what's going on there, then you have the ability to really control and manipulate and be lazy as hell. … Unfortunately, most people have such a negative connotation – when you say ‘spiritual,' they go ‘cult.'
People talk about the cult of GTD. I saw buttons online that had your picture inside a heart. It's cute [laughing].
But are there people who are skeptical of this to the point that they think it's manipulative or a culty kind of thing? Sure … essentially what I'm teaching is an installed thought process. So some think it's mental manipulation and assume that it's like mind control.
